


they know (you walk like you're a god)

by shuofthewind



Series: between disaster and atrocity [2]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Actual Alley Cat Matthew Murdock, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bechdel Test Pass, Blatant Misuse of Superpowers, Darcy Lewis Is A Bratty Child, Dorkflirting, Elektra Natchios Is Better Than All of You, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, F/M, Fluff and Smut, I have no excuses, Porn Without Plot, Pre-Canon, Some Dom-y Overtones?, Though It Does Have Character Development, Threesome - F/F/M, Trailer-Inspired
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-04
Updated: 2016-03-04
Packaged: 2018-05-24 15:51:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6158734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shuofthewind/pseuds/shuofthewind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are a lot of ways to define the word "wreckage." Elektra's pretty familiar with them all, by this point.</p><p>[In which there is a lot of sex, mostly inspired by the trailer because hot damn, hands. DevilSaiShock. Elektra POV.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	they know (you walk like you're a god)

**Author's Note:**

> I may have been overtly inspired by the scenes of Elektra and Matt in Fogwell's in the second trailer.
> 
> FOR GOD'S SAKE, ELEKTRA NATCHIOS, YOU ARE MAKING MOSTLY-ACE LIFE VERY DIFFICULT.
> 
> In other news, if Alix hadn't been sure she was into ladies before that trailer drop, she is now very, very sure. Also, Elektra is better than all of you. 
> 
> As indicated above, I'm...grayace. So if this is weird, apologies. 
> 
> The newspapers call Matt "the devil" and Elektra and Darcy "the furies," but the thing is with the three of them only Darcy really goes by it. Elektra is Elektra. She's actually kind of mad they gave her a nickname tbh. She doesn't hide what she is like the other two do, and she gets all huffy when people assume she does. 
> 
> This is law-school era stuff. 
> 
> Title from "Strange Love" by Halsey which. Um. Yes.

Sometimes she wonders if continuing on to graduate school was the best idea she’s ever had. Elektra tosses her reading glasses onto the edge of the desk, and presses the heels of her hands into her eyes. She’s been sitting all day, her muscles are jumping, and she can’t phrase it right, she _can’t_ pick the words out right, there’s something glitching inside her head and making it impossible to say what she wants to say about these damn characters. It’s been that way for a good hour, and she can’t seem to peel herself away from the computer.

At the door, Darcy (she’s just coming back from her internship, still leaning on the entryway table as she undoes the clasps to her shoes) blinks at her. “You look like someone killed your cat.”

“I don’t have a cat.”

“We could get a cat. You’d get along. Owl and the pussycat.” 

Elektra huffs, and puts her reading glasses back on. “I’m not an owl.”

“And yet you can chew us up and spit out our bones without any trouble, E.” 

It’s a joke, she knows. Still, she can’t quite bring herself to laugh. “I hate this book,” says Elektra, and stares hard at the ceiling. Darcy kicks off her high heels. She’s very quiet, crossing the floor, but when she pushes at Elektra’s shoulders and slides into the chair behind her, she’s warm. Even with the snow in her hair.

“You,” she says, putting her mouth to the nape of Elektra’s neck, “love this book, for some completely incomprehensible reason. Rochester’s a jackass, and half the men are douchebags, and it’s depressing as fuck that she goes back and marries him eventually because seriously, Jane, girl, you could _do so much better_ —”

“I know all of that.”

“—but,” says Darcy, and hooks her chin over Elektra’s shoulder, “you love this book anyway, which is why you’ve been working on interpreting it since junior year.”

Elektra lifts her head from her hands, turns her head. Her mouth brushes over Darcy’s cheekbone. “What’s your point?”

“My point is I left at eight this morning, and it is now six, and you have not budged from your chair.” She’s getting used to the sight of Darcy in suits, Darcy with her hair up and wearing heels and actually using makeup even if she whines about it the whole way. Sometimes, though, she still wishes that the hats could come back. It’s idiotic, that she misses the stupid hats. “My point is that you’re working too hard and you need like…one day of nothing. Which coincidentally is what I think we all need.”

Her mouth curves up without her permission. When Darcy slips her arms around Elektra’s waist, she pushes back just enough to feel Darcy’s heartbeat against her spine. “A day of nothing.”

“You and Matt are not allowed to get out of bed before nine, and Matt’s not allowed to put on shoes because if he does you know he’ll wander off somewhere—” Darcy puts her mouth to Elektra’s shoulder again, smiling “—and you are not allowed to even think about Bertha Mason and Jane Eyre and Edward Rochester for the whole damn day, E. You don’t touch any of your papers or the book or the computer or any of it. It’s forbidden.” 

“Hm,” says Elektra, and puts her mouth to Darcy’s cheekbone. She can hear Matthew’s keys outside the door, jangling. “And what are you not allowed to do?” 

“Other than read the _New York Times_ because I get huffy?”

“Other than read the _New York Times_.”

“I dunno. Not leave the couch all day. Or put on actual clothes.”

Elektra hums, deep in her chest, and kisses Darcy’s jaw, the line of the bone. “That sounds like an excellent option.”

“I meant sweatpants and T-shirts, you nympho.” Darcy’s laughing, though. It’s harder than she’d like to kiss her like this, twisting around in her chair, but they manage. Her smile tastes like coffee and snowfall, and Darcy presses two fingers to Elektra’s jaw in a chilly hello. She nudges her nose into Elektra’s cheekbone. “You’re absurd sometimes.”

“I am not,” says Elektra. “Absurdity is for lesser beings.”

“If you say so.” 

_I love you_ , Elektra thinks. She can almost taste it on the tip of her tongue. It keeps cropping up more and more often, lately, tangling up in her teeth. _I love you._ “I do say so.”

“Of course you do,” Darcy says, and smiles into Elektra’s mouth for a moment. When Matthew opens the door, she turns her head, rests her cheek to Elektra’s shoulder. “Matt, it’s decided, we’re not doing anything tomorrow.”

Matthew shuts the door before he leans his cane against the wall, dropping the keys in the bowl. “Can I ask why?”

“Personal day. You’re not allowed to wake up before six or get out of bed before nine. Or put on shoes, in case you didn’t catch that part.” 

“I caught it, I just wasn’t sure what that had to do with the _not do anything all day_ part.”

“When you put on shoes, you go somewhere.” 

There’s something warm and soft in the way Matthew touches his fingertips to Darcy’s shoulder, the way he bends and puts his mouth to her hair. When Elektra turns her face up, he does the same, just barely over her hairline in something that’s not quite a kiss. It’s more a hello, she thinks. Before he can walk away, Elektra hooks her hand into the pocket of his slacks, and holds him there. “Am I not allowed to go anywhere?”

“Not tomorrow. Tomorrow’s Saturday. Work can wait, and—the devil and the furies can wait, friends can wait, everything else can wait. We just…do nothing. All day.” Darcy rolls her eyes. “Hard as that is for you two Type As to actually consider.” 

“It’s not that difficult,” Elektra says. “It just seems like a bit of a waste of time. We could be finishing things.”

“Is that a euphemism or like…a legit thing that you could be finishing? Because if you have meetings or something tomorrow, we could postpone.”

“It was a euphemism,” says Elektra, amused. “Don’t panic.”

“I’m not panicking.” Darcy scowls. “I should not have to argue this much for a free day. This is silly.” 

“I don’t actually have anywhere to go tomorrow.” Matthew strokes a hand down Elektra’s hair, thoughtfully. “It could work.”

“No shoes,” Darcy says again. “And I bet you that the pair of you won’t even last two hours before you go stir crazy trying to find something to do.”

Matthew takes off his glasses. “We’re not that impossible, Darcy.”

“’scute that you think that,” Darcy says, and yelps when Elektra pinches her knee. “Rude.”

“Brat.”

“Fine.” She hides her face in Elektra’s neck. “Two hours. Just wait. You’ll see that I’m right.”

Elektra cocks her eyebrows at her computer in a way that makes Matthew snort. Then she lets him go—Matthew bends to put his mouth to her hair again, lingering, careful—and goes back to work. If there’s really going to be some kind of absurd rule about no work tomorrow, then she should at least finish this edit. 

Elektra’s willing to share a bed with them, but she hardly ever agrees to be pressed between them. She doesn’t like not having the freedom to move, to lunge up and out of bed and seize one of her sai out from beneath the mattress if she has to. Matthew’s the same, most nights, too on edge to really be comfortable if they trap him in the center, so it’s usually Darcy, touchy, huggy Darcy, who winds up curling into a ball against one of them, the other pressed against her back. This time it’s Elektra, and she wakes up with her leg slung over Darcy’s hip and her nose in Darcy’s hair and Matthew’s hand stroking a pattern down her shoulder, barely tangible. His mouth quirks up when she blinks at him. “Hello.”

Elektra blinks at him again, slowly. She shifts. “What time is it?”

“I don’t know. Morning.” He tips his head. “The radio a few floors down says seven thirty-five.” 

She hums. Usually, if they’re not all out on the streets until dawn, they’re awake by six, even on Saturdays. Seven-thirty is a luxury. Well, for Elektra and Matthew, anyway. She’s fairly certain Darcy would sleep all day if they let her. “How long have you been awake?”

“Not sure.” He hooks his thumb into the strap of her tank top. “I was listening.”

“Anything interesting happen?”

“You said something about bananagrams, I think.”

She laughs through her nose, and shuts her eyes. She doesn’t like people holding her while she’s asleep, not exactly, but she doesn’t mind holding someone else. Or she doesn’t mind holding Darcy, or Matthew. She’s not entirely sure which one it is. “You’re lying to me, Matthew.”

“Possibly.” He shifts. “I should make coffee.”

“You two are loud,” Darcy says into Matthew’s shirt, and fists her hands up in the fabric. “Talking about bananagrams, what the hell.”

“Good morning to you,” Elektra says, and kisses Darcy’s shoulder. “You snored again last night.”

For once, that doesn’t make her squawk. Darcy mumbles under her breath for so long it starts to sound like one long, lilting lullaby. She hides her face in Matthew’s shoulder, winding closer. “Don’t get up.”

“It’s seven-thirty.”

“That isn’t nine.”

“Darcy, I need to—”

“Nine,” Darcy says again, and pushes her nose into his throat. “Today is a nothing day. No moving until nine.”

Matthew opens his mouth, and then closes it. When Elektra sits up, hooking her hair behind her ear so she can see the pair of them better, there’s a look on his face that she can’t quantify, that she can’t pin down. It could be amused, or irritated, or tender, or completely and totally twitterpated, or even a mix of all four, and when Darcy sets her mouth to the sleeve of his shirt the look goes soft and shadowy in a way that makes the pulpy spot under her ribs go sore. Elektra reaches out and brushes a thumb over his lip. When he turns his face up to her she leans over Darcy and kisses him, because she can, because she’s like a bruised apple and they keep curling into her soft spots. She’s light and careful, for once, more to keep the taste of morning whatever out of her mouth than anything, but Matthew rests his hand to her cheek and holds her there anyway. Darcy hums, and resettles her head on the pillow. 

“We agreed, Matthew,” Elektra says, when she finally draws back. She strokes her fingers down his jaw. “If you recall.”

Matthew stops. He’s stopped trying to pull away, but it’s different; this time, he just stops, tipping his head to listen. Then he starts laughing. It’s not the rolling laugh that creeps out of him sometimes when it’s dark and one or both or all of them are trying to keep their hands to themselves. It’s not the sharp, broken one either, the one from black nights and bloody concrete. It’s high-pitched, surprisingly, more than a little startled, and she’d call it awed if it weren’t wrapped so close together with the smile on his mouth and the way he moves, settling as if he plans to stay there for the next eternity. Elektra burrows underneath the comforters again, hooks her ankle around one of Darcy’s and pulls until she can trap one leg between both of hers.

“Stay,” she says, to both of them. 

Matthew rolls onto his side. He scuffs two knuckles down the bone of Darcy’s jaw (Darcy blinks slowly, smiling, pleased), and then reaches over her to touch his fingertips to Elektra’s cheek, leaves them there for a lingering moment. 

“I’m not going anywhere,” says Matthew. It rings, oddly. Not just for now, she thinks, but for always. _I’m not going anywhere._ Something starts unwinding in her chest, and it does it so suddenly that she only realizes it was taut in the loosening. Elektra peeks through her lashes, and then puts her mouth back to the space behind Darcy’s ear, letting herself doze off. 

The next time she wakes up, Darcy’s laughing somewhere nearby, and there are kitchen smells. Elektra curls tighter around the pillow, just for a moment, before touching the space under the comforter where both of them were, last she remembers. Cool but not cold. Not very long. Her hair’s tangling in front of her eyes, and it feels as though she’s been smacked in the face with a sledgehammer thanks to the extra three hours. (Three hours? The clock says it’s just past ten. She can’t remember the last time she slept past nine.) Matthew murmurs something from the other room, sounding pleased, and a second or two later, Darcy starts giggling again. She hasn’t laughed so much in ages, and it’s enough to drag Elektra out of bed (albeit with a blanket around her shoulders because she’s still half-muzzy and doesn’t particularly want to leave the comforter) to watch them from the doorway. Darcy’s in the sort of mood where she keeps tripping people up because she can (Matthew calls it _bratcat_ , though Elektra’s not entirely sure that’s not Darcy’s word in the first place, because _God, Matt, quit being such a bratty cat_ ) and Matthew’s trying and failing to make coffee, crashing into her more often than not. Probably intentionally, Elektra thinks, leaning into the door. They’ve always been very good at crashing into each other, even before all of this.

“Good morning,” Matthew says without looking around, and then he hooks both hands around Darcy’s waist and heaves her up onto the counter to get her out of the way. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Darcy woke me.” Elektra pulls the comforter closer around her shoulders. Her voice scrapes, even to her. “You’re being noisy.”

“Not really.” Darcy swings her legs, tapping one heel against the cabinet. “I’ve been noisier in the morning.”

Elektra almost snorts, and pads into the kitchen after them. There’s a blanket tangled on the couch, and a laptop set up with a paused Netflix screen. Darcy, probably. How they both managed to leave the bed without her noticing, she has no idea. “Doesn’t change the fact that you’re being noisy now.”

“Very true,” Darcy says, and tugs on the hem of the comforter. “I conned Matt into making coffee because I thought it would wake you up, but then it turned into an egg extravaganza and now it’s like…actual breakfast food. Which would have woken you too, so, y’know, either way.”

“You’re being exceptionally silly, you know,” Elektra says, but she smiles a little. She misses the stupid hats and they’re both being absolutely ridiculous but it’s endearing and not irritating and this is _ridiculous_. They’ve made a mess of her, truly. 

“I’m always silly.” She tugs on the comforter again. “Your hair’s a wreck and it’s adorable.”

Elektra snorts again. “Of course it is.”

“So much ego,” Darcy says, and kisses her. She tastes a little like toothpaste. “The pair of you together in a room is occasionally overwhelmingly egotistical.”

“Says you,” Matthew says. “You regularly refer to yourself as the Queen of All That Is Awesomesauce.”

“That’s just ‘cause that’s true.” She considers for a moment. “What is awesomesauce made of? Like…tabasco and sriracha and ketchup together but not in a gross way?”

“That,” says Elektra, “is _vile_.”

“I said not in a gross way!”

“Ego, thy name is Lewis,” says Matthew, and knocks into Elektra in a hello as he moves around towards the sink. She bumps at him with her elbow. Darcy makes a face at him, and he says, “I know exactly what you’re doing back there, you know.”

“Yeah, fuck you,” Darcy says. She pulls on Elektra’s comforter, and starts pulling her fingers through Elektra’s hair, thoughtfully, fixing the mussed places. For once, Elektra lets her do it. “I can make faces if I want.”

“Who on earth offered you silly pills?” Elektra leans her head into Darcy’s hand. “This is preposterous even for you.”

“E, are you saying I’m preposterous?”

“A little, maybe.” 

Darcy laughs again, the snorting outrageous one that seems to curl up from her toes. “ _A little, maybe_ ,” she says, in a flawless mimicry of Elektra’s accent. “You always sound very Greek when you’re still half-asleep.”

“I always sound Greek because I am Greek.”

“By that definition I should always sound Georgian, and that—” Atlanta—not Atlanta, but Trashlanta, which is another Darcy word that Elektra is fairly certain means poor neighborhoods and projects—starts creeping out, all honey slow and twanging “—that’s kinda dangerous.”

There’s a look on her face that’s half-unsheathed blade. Elektra leans forward and puts her lips against the shadows in Darcy’s mouth. Then she leans back, and says, “You’re the one who keeps saying dangerous can be a good thing.”

“Hm,” Darcy says, and looks over Elektra’s shoulder at Matthew. “Do you think I should talk like this all the time, too?”

“If you want.” Matthew’s voice is just a bit too level, consciously, carefully level, because usually the only time they hear Trashlanta is when Darcy’s running with them through the dark, and there’s a kind of energy to that that always makes him pay more attention. “It might make it easier for people to recognize you.”

“Which is why I don’t.”

“You could, though,” Elektra says, and Darcy’s eyes snap to hers. “You said you have to think about it, the accent.”

“Not so much anymore. I have to be careful about theater—” she overpronounces it, _thee-eyy-t’r,_ like a Canadian _eh_ trapped in the middle “—and some other things too, like _A’lan’a_ , because people like to pronounce the Ts and stuff, but yeah. Not so much. I’m used to New York, now. And people look at you weird when you sound trash Southern, you can actually see them detracting IQ points the more y’alls you use.”

“But you could with us.” Elektra lifts her hands, and the comforter drops, slipping off one shoulder. Darcy doesn’t fix it. “If you wanted.”

“What, be Southern? I’m always Southern, darlin’.”

“Be you,” Elektra says, and Darcy’s eyes go shadowed. “It’s part of you. You can be you. At least, with us. Here.”

By the sink, Matthew’s gone still. When Darcy looks at him, he turns, and braces his hands against the counter. She can barely see it out of the corner of her eye when he tips his head and says, “I like hearing it,” in a voice that’s traipsing into dark. “It’s part of you.”

Darcy wets her lips. “I don’t—usually have much control over it to be honest. Not anymore. I need to try. Unless, you know.”

Unless she’s pulled on a scarf. Unless they’re blazing, knives and sparks and fists. Elektra steps closer, between Darcy’s knees, and the comforter slips down to the floor. “Hm.”

“The eggs are going to burn,” Darcy says, still a little twangy. She watches Elektra for a second, and then looks over Elektra’s shoulder at Matthew again. Whatever she sees there, she swallows. The playfulness has faded into predator, bared teeth and cocked head and prickling attention. Elektra presses her hands to Darcy’s hips, and holds on. “Seriously, pretty sure they’re burning.”

“I don’t care about the eggs,” Elektra says. She strokes her thumb over the hollow of Darcy’s hip, once, twice, three times, and then slides her hands up underneath the sweatshirt to press her fingers into skin and warmth and bone. Darcy sucks in air through her nose, and looks to Elektra again. “The eggs can wait.”

“If they burn it’d make the apartment smell weird.”

Behind her, Matthew steps away from the sink, shifting his weight. “We can deal with the eggs.”

“E—” Elektra snakes her hand up underneath the fabric of Darcy’s T-shirt, nicking at the underside of one breast with her fingernails, and Darcy heaves a breath. “Elektra, Jesus—”

“Do you really want to talk about eggs right now?” she says. 

“I—ah.” Darcy licks her lips again. “I mean, no, not—not particularly at the moment, but—”

“Darcy,” says Matthew. “Shut up about the eggs.”

When Darcy’s sitting on the counter Elektra has to rise onto the balls of her feet to kiss her. It’s not irritating, not exactly. Just a little different. There are still shadows layered into the corners of her mouth, traces of the fury. Matthew rests one hand to Elektra’s waist as Darcy puts her palm to the nape of Elektra’s neck, holding her there, opening her mouth and touching her tongue to Elektra’s lower lip in a way that’s startlingly shy. Elektra digs in with her nails. When she leans back, scuffing her mouth over Darcy’s as she goes, Darcy looks a little dizzy.

“What eggs?” she says, and Matthew lets out a breath that dusts hot and damp over Elektra’s hair. Then Darcy bites her lip, and says, half-smiling, “Only I’m kind of actually, you know, I want breakfast for once, so if we could like—”

“Shut _up_ ,” Elektra says, and steals her mouth again. Matthew’s fingers trace a line down her spine, over the skin between her shoulder blades, and she leans back just enough to knock into his chest as she seizes the hem of Darcy’s sweatshirt with both hands. _Clothes_ , she thinks, _off_ , and Matthew sneaks his hand up the back of her tank top to splay his fingers wide across her ribs. 

“Someone’s on a mission,” Darcy says, and her voice is all husk as Elektra presses in with her hands, rucking up the fabric of her sweatshirt and yanking the damn thing up and off. Darcy’s hair is a mess and her mouth is pink and she’s smiling, or trying very hard not to smile, and it’s all incredibly distracting. She sets her teeth into Darcy’s lower lip— _patronization is not appreciated_ —and then gets her hands up under Darcy’s Columbia T-shirt again, scraping. 

“You,” she says, and Darcy makes a high thin sound in the back of her throat when Elektra presses her fingers into Darcy’s skin, “are the one who said no actual clothes. I’m simply making sure you keep your word.”

“You try to hide it but you’re actually this tremendous dork, aren’t you, E?” says Darcy, and Elektra leans in and bites at Darcy’s earlobe. There’s another little sound from her then, more cracking. “Matt, seriously—”

“Apparently you gave her your word,” says Matthew. The words scrape over her skin like sandstone. Elektra traces her fingers in streaking, scratching patterns down Darcy’s ribs to her hips again, dropping her mouth to Darcy’s jaw just long enough that Darcy tips her head back to bare her throat. “I’m not getting in the way.”

“You’re no help,” says Darcy, and Matthew leans in to put his mouth to Darcy’s ear. Whatever he does, she starts laughing in a way that’s all breath and tone, and it’s just distracting enough that Elektra nearly fumbles hooking her hand into the waistband of Darcy’s sweatpants. 

“I,” he says, “can be very helpful, when I want to.”

“You two mimic each other’s speech patterns when you get like this and sometimes it’s really—” Darcy shifts her hips and the stupid pants fall to the floor “— _really_ hot, like seriously, I don’t know if you even know you do it—” 

“Only sometimes?” says Elektra, and draws her teeth over the pulse in Darcy’s throat. She trills again.

“All the time.” She fists one hand in Elektra’s hair. “Every time you do it, it’s very distracting—”

“Wonderful,” Elektra says, and presses the flat of her tongue to the tendon between Darcy’s neck and shoulder. Then she bites, hard enough to leave a mark behind.

“Usually it’s intentional,” says Matthew, and touches his fingertips to Elektra’s shoulder. They’ve never needed to talk, to move around each other. It’s instinctive synchronicity. Elektra shifts just enough that they can tangle around her, her mouth to Darcy’s jaw and his mouth to the curve of her opposite ear, knocking together, and Darcy can’t seem to decide who she wants to scratch more. Her nails bite into the skin of Elektra’s scalp. “For the most part.”

“You’re such a bastard.”

The counter, Elektra thinks, isn’t the most conducive to dealing with three people. When she knocks into Matthew again, he turns and bends and puts his mouth to hers, and she scratches her nails into him. They’ve never ever had to talk about it. When it breaks, Darcy’s flushed all the way down her throat, pink and gleaming. Elektra snags both of her hands, pulls her off the counter.

“Stove,” she says, but Matthew’s already snapped it off. Darcy’s laughing. 

“This was supposed to be a nothing day.”

“This counts as nothing,” Elektra says. She draws her forward, and touches her lips to Darcy’s mouth, to her cheek, little ghosting kisses that keep her following even as Matthew presses in from behind. “You said we don’t go anywhere.”

“This isn’t exactly what I had in—ah.” She stops, or stumbles, and Matthew crashes right into her, dipping his head to put his mouth to the skin of her throat. “Hm. This isn’t really what I had in mind—”

“Liar,” Matthew says, in a crooning, husky voice that makes Elektra want to tackle him to the floor. “You’re lying.”

“I’m not—” Darcy leans her head back into his shoulder, and Elektra rests her hands over Matthew’s on Darcy’s hips, touching her mouth to her collar, to her sternum. “Holy shit, you guys—”

Elektra nips at her clavicle. At the same time, Matthew does something with his teeth that makes Darcy shiver all over, and reach back to hook her nails into his hair. “Bed,” Elektra says, “ _now_.”

Darcy blinks at her, hazy. “Yeah, okay.” 

Darcy hadn’t bothered to put on a bra this morning (it’s barely ten, Elektra thinks, they barely made it an hour, and she’s not completely displeased with that) so the last thing that has to be dealt with is her underwear and the stupid socks with pandas on them that Elektra still wants to burn in a bonfire. They’re gone by the time Elektra heaves herself up onto the bed, and pulls Darcy with her, drawing her up close to twist a hand into her hair and kiss her, darting her tongue over the blunt edges of her teeth. There’s a clattering sound from the door as Matthew smacks it shut with his foot, and then he’s there too, and it’s a tangle of hands and teeth as Darcy makes tiny, riveting sounds and tries to find something to hold on to. “You are the most nonsensical human being,” Elektra says, and sticks her tongue into Darcy’s ear, just for a second. “You’re ludicrous.”

“Apparently that’s a good thing,” says Darcy, and then keens between her teeth. Matthew’s shifted to press his mouth to her breast, to her ribs. “Holy shit, we’re at like ninety and I thought we were at ten, was there something I missed? Is there some kind of national sex race going on right now? Because if so how the hell—”

“Shut up,” Elektra says. She shifts up onto her knees and settles herself, pressed up close against Darcy’s spine, breathing into her hair as she draws her hands from Darcy’s hips to her ribs to her breasts, rolling at a nipple until she makes a noise like she’s been stung by a wasp. “Just hush.”

“I talk.” Darcy seizes the fabric of Elektra’s pajama pants when Matthew kisses her hip, nudges her knees apart. “I’m a talker, you should know that—Jesus Christ, okay, Matt, that was fast—”

“That doesn’t sound particularly enthusiastic,” says Matthew, and shifts Darcy’s legs wider apart. Elektra scuffs her nails over the underside of Darcy’s right breast, and she _whines_. “I could stop.”

“It’s enthusiastic.” Darcy digs her heel into the comforter. “Believe me. Enthusiasm everywhere. Also suspicion, but mostly enthusiasm. Just—I know exactly what you’re doing right now, the pair of you—”

Elektra draws Darcy’s earlobe through her teeth. “And what’s that?”

“You planned this beforehand.” She knots her hand into Elektra’s, holds on. There’s not much else she can do at the moment, Elektra thinks. Matthew can be strikingly single-minded once he gets an idea, and he’s touching his lips to Darcy’s skin like it’s helping him breathe. “You planned this out because I did something that made you all hot and bothered weeks ago and the pair of you have just been waiting to take revenge and that’s not _fair_ —” 

“This isn’t revenge.” Matthew nips hard at the inside of her thigh, and Darcy makes a small, strangled panting sound. “This is for being a brat.”

“I wasn’t being a brat!”

“You were,” Elektra says. “You were most certainly being a brat.”

“Maybe a little.” She’s panting very fast. “But you both get all huffy when I do and it’s kind of—Jesus, Matt, can you _please_ just—”

Matthew has the most wicked, terrible little smile on his mouth. He touches his lips to Darcy’s hipbone again, to the top of her leg. “Please what?”

“I am not gonna _beg_ , you jackass, so don’t you even start—”

“I thought you were the one that liked words,” says Elektra. It’s fascinating, watching this. She’s always thought it was fascinating. She’s learned more ways to make the pair of them fall utterly to pieces just through watching than she could have through weeks of trial and error. She locks her arms around Darcy’s ribs and goes back to her ear, touching the curve with her lips, with her teeth. Darcy rests one hand over her laced fingers and pushes down, pressing Elektra’s linked hands hard into her stomach. “You shouldn’t complain now that we’re using them.”

“This is extraordinarily patronizing,” Darcy says. She’s far too coherent. Elektra draws her tongue over the skin behind Darcy’s ear.

“Brat.”

“Shut up.” She digs her nails into Elektra’s knuckles. “Both of you stop teasing.”

“Is that what we’re doing?” 

“It seems justified to me,” says Matthew.

Darcy opens her mouth—to keep arguing, probably, she never stops arguing—and then she yelps. Matthew’s put his mouth to her skin again, to her hair, saying something that Elektra can’t quite make out. It’s a purring kind of murmur that has Darcy quaking against her ribs. Darcy reaches out and fists a hand in Matthew’s hair, not hard, exactly, just enough to lift his head. “I swear to God,” she says, in a voice that makes Elektra thinks of wildcats, of snarling cougars, “don’t you dare talk the talk if you’re not gonna follow through, Matthew.” 

Matthew breathes out hard. Darcy loosens her hand, rests her fingers to his scalp. “Well,” he says. “Since you asked so nicely.”

“I’m going to kill you,” Darcy says. “E will help.”

His face goes all soft again, then. Elektra’s not entirely sure he knows just how open he looks, right now. From a hundred kilometers a second to something closer to a crawl, the air all thick and pressing in like sunlight against her skin. Darcy leans forward just enough that she can rest her hand to his cheek, and he turns in silence to kiss her fingers. Elektra puts her mouth to the back of Darcy’s shoulder, to the side of her throat. _Mine._ Somehow, incredibly. Both of them. They wreck her entirely, with their wildness and their tenderness and their soft places, the gaps in what should be solid armor where she could slip a blade into them without any effort at all. The thought of it makes her stomach turn inside out. _Mine._ And then: _theirs_ , she thinks. She’s never once belonged to anyone, but somehow she’s theirs and they’re hers and they’re each other’s, too, and each of them have tangled together so completely that she can’t take a step without carrying them with her. The only people on the planet that have reached past every face she’s ever worn and touched her. Not Elektra Natchios, not Elektra or E or anyone other than _her_ , who she is in the deepest, most hidden parts of herself. They could rip her to pieces with the softest kind of touch. She could tear them apart with nothing more than the tip of her tongue. Fire burns her up from the inside out. 

“As entertaining as this would be to keep watching,” Elektra says, in a voice that’s altogether far too raw, “it truly is incredibly rude, Matthew.”

“ _Thank_ you,” says Darcy. “At least one of you will—”

She chokes. Matthew’s finally dipped his head, his hand braced against the hollow of Darcy’s thigh, and Elektra tries to remember how to breathe. Darcy digs her nails into Elektra’s knuckles, gropes with her free hand until she can tangle her fingers in Matthew’s hair, and she curses quietly under her breath. “ _Jesus_.” And yes, Elektra thinks, yes, that’s how it feels, like your seams are being plucked apart in rhythm with his fingers and his tongue, like the only thing that will keep you from losing your mind is to dig in and hold on. He’s very good at knowing exactly where they want him, what they want him to do, and it drives her _crazy_ to think that he’s using all the little cues and all the little sounds and the tensions and the fluctuations inside and out, all the things that Elektra can’t even begin to guess at, to dismantle them entirely. Darcy makes a soft keening sound, her head rocking back onto Elektra’s shoulder, and Elektra goes back to her throat with her tongue, with her lips and her teeth, turning her hand under Darcy’s to lace their fingers together. “Fall apart if you want,” she says, very quietly into Darcy’s ear. “You’re not going to crash. We won’t let you crash.”

Matthew hums, and Darcy makes a bitten-off noise like shattering glass. She’s always so strikingly quiet, during the build and the fall. Compared to how often she talks, to how loud she can get, Darcy’s always astoundingly wreathed in silence. Other people talking, though—it doesn’t have to be filthy things. It could be anything, really. Anything genuine. She just likes hearing people speak. Elektra’s fairly sure that it’s tones and consonants more than anything. When Elektra reaches out, threads her fingers into Matthew’s hair, Darcy seizes her wrist and holds on. 

“We would never let you crash, Darcy, not really.” She feathers her mouth to the back of Darcy’s jaw. “We wouldn’t, not either of us, and we know you’d never let us crash either.” Her train of thought’s spiraling away into the sounds, how Matthew’s hair feels caught in her fingers, how Darcy’s still tipped back into her shoulder and baring her throat and trusting her not to rip it out, and the soft places inside her ribs are building and spreading and swallowing her whole. “We’d catch you and put the pieces back together because that’s what we always do, we’re supposed to hold each other’s pieces in place, that’s what we’re for, it’s what we’re best at, the three of us, it’s how it’s supposed to be, the only ones who can ever really understand—”

She loses track of the words, after a while. She might slip into Greek. She’s paying more attention to the way Darcy’s starting to shake, the way she’s breathing. Elektra’s not entirely certain what Matthew does, but Darcy makes a sound that’s completely indescribable. She scrapes her nails into the back of Elektra’s wrist. “E—” 

“I love you,” Elektra says. She doesn’t think about it. It just comes out, and saying it doesn’t make her feel like she’s peeling something out of herself like she thought it would. It doesn’t feel like she’s cutting a secret out and leaving it bloody on the floor. It’s just…they’re words, she’s said them, and Darcy’s so breathless she might not have even heard it. Whether or not Matthew did, she can think about that later. She swallows. “We both do, and you can’t ever forget it, you’re ours—” _and we’re yours_ “—and we love you so much, darling, sometimes I can’t even breathe because of how much I love the pair of you and that’s not ever going to change, so fall apart for us, Darcy, we’d never let you shatter, please—”

Darcy twitches. Elektra says it again, right into her ear, barely a whisper, “I love you, please,” and then she’s arched, silent and breathless and pushing back hard enough into Elektra that she has to catch her balance against the mattress with one hand. By the time she’s dropped back against the bed, Matthew’s shifted, leaning up to put his mouth to Darcy’s ribs, to the dip between her collarbones. She’s panting and flushed and there are red flecking marks behind her ear and all down her throat, and she’s mesmerizing. 

“Elektra,” she says, once she can speak again. “E—” 

Elektra shakes her head. She catches Darcy by the chin and kisses her, slips her tongue into Darcy’s mouth before she can finish, before she can say _thank you_ or _why are you only saying that now_ or absolutely anything else. She’s smacked them into something far beyond a joke, and she didn’t mean to, she can usually keep her tongue between her teeth, she’s not sure what sparked this or what’ll end it but she’s furious with herself for losing control of her mouth. When she leans back, dragging at Darcy’s lower lip, Matthew’s braced next to them. His mouth is wet when he hooks a hand around the nape of Elektra’s neck and kisses her instead, and she fists a hand up in the collar of his shirt and yanks hard enough to almost tear the thing as Darcy touches them, pressing her mouth to Elektra’s hair, to the scar in the hollow of her throat, to the back of her shoulder and crossways over the nape of her neck. “Elektra,” she says again, pressed against one of her vertebrae, “I know that, of course I know that, I love you, I’m not going to forget it, I promise you—”

Elektra can’t help making the little sound she does, something crackling that tears itself free without her permission. They’ve rocketed into something much more important than sex on a day off, and they can’t go back from it. Matthew breaks, draws back, and it’s his hands and Darcy’s together that knot up in the hem of Elektra’s tank top and draw it up and off. Darcy throws it aside. “Elektra,” he says, and Elektra kisses him again, pushing just enough that it stings. There’s a pillow against her head, and she can’t remember when they pressed her back into the mattress. “Elektra—”

“Turn over,” Darcy says, “E, honey, turn on your stomach.” 

Elektra blinks, muzzy. “I don’t—”

“Please,” she says again, as Matthew kisses the corner of Elektra’s mouth. “Please, trust me, E, turn on your stomach.” 

The creak of the bed muffles whatever Darcy says to Matthew, whatever she tells him. Elektra turns her head, trying to see, but it’s just a mess, Darcy’s fingers plucking at the hem of Matthew’s shirt and dragging it off him, kissing him like snowfall, light and careful over the edge of his cheek. “Hey,” Darcy says, and bends down over Elektra, touching her mouth to her shoulder blade. “Hey, hi.” 

“Hi,” Elektra says, and then Darcy’s put her lips and tongue flat to one of Elektra’s old scars, and it’s like she’s being flayed open all over again. “Darcy—”

“Shh.” She brushes her mouth to the top of Elektra’s spine. Matthew draws his fingers over her ribs, and kisses that same scar over her shoulder, carefully. “Let us do this, Elektra, please—” 

“We won’t shatter you,” Matthew says into the mark. “Elektra, sweetheart, we won’t ever hurt you, please trust us—”

 _Of course I trust you_ , Elektra thinks, _you’re the only ones I trust_ , but the words have dried up again. She doesn’t move. It’s enough of a cue. Darcy sweeps Elektra’s hair off the back of her neck and puts her lips to the soft space there, so very, very carefully that it’s nothing like a kiss at all. It’s more like she’s printing her mouth on Elektra’s skin. When Darcy shifts, to the right, lower, pressing her lips to what has to be a bruise from something or other (it aches in a way that’s unmistakable) Matthew leans over and touches one of her scars with his fingertips, drawing out the line of it before tracing it again with his mouth. She starts counting them. _One, two, six, twelve, thirty._ It’s all feather-light touches, ghosting kisses, something that she can’t predict or even see. Darcy shifts from bruises and scrapes and scars to freckles and birthmarks and sunspots, and Matthew draws out his own pattern, sketching constellations with the tip of his tongue. They crisscross, back and forth, and Elektra’s shaking before they even reach the halfway mark, before they’ve even passed the middle of her back. It’s almost like worship, and it’s peeling her to pieces. When Matthew rests his hand over the small of her spine, and Darcy bends to put her mouth to the cut on her ribs from that day in Central Park, from the day that she’d told Darcy the truth, she can barely even get a full breath. 

She thinks one of them might talk, when they slow, but all Darcy does is draw her fingers down Elektra’s spine. “Turn back over,” she says, and Elektra does it without a word. They have their own kind of synchronicity, Matthew and Darcy. Darcy only has to touch his elbow for Matthew to realize what she wants him to do. When he puts his mouth to Elektra’s throat, splays his fingers over her carotid, it feels like she’s been gutted.

“Nobody’s taking us, E,” Darcy says, and settles back into her pattern, kissing bruises and scars, flaws in her skin, working at the waistband of Elektra’s pants until they’ve slipped down far enough to let her scrape her teeth over Elektra’s hip. Darcy spreads her hands wide over her ribcage, pressing her tongue to the dip of Elektra’s navel like she’s trying to tell a secret. “We’re here for as long as you want us, we’re always going to be here—”

“We’re not going anywhere,” says Matthew against her chin, against her mouth. “We’re not going anywhere, not ever—”

“Not _ever_ ,” Darcy says again. She draws her fingers down along the line of Elektra’s hipbone to hook into her without warning, a sudden press like a star bursting. Matthew swallows up whatever sound she makes. When Elektra lunges up off the mattress, gasping, he catches her with both hands and tangles all his fingers in her hair, letting her scratch as he kisses her, over and over, open-mouthed, wild and biting and sloppy and real. Darcy’s still touching her, settling pressed against the back of Elektra’s shoulder, warm skin and heavy breasts and an arm around her waist, and she’s still drawing her fingers in and out in an excruciating, unpredictable pattern that’s ripping Elektra to shreds. She can’t stop herself from sparking, from making a soft muffled noise into Matthew’s lips and groping wildly over her shoulder for Darcy, fisting her hand up in Darcy’s hair, holding on, because she can’t stop moving and her whole body’s on fire and she can still feel the star charts they’ve mapped out on her skin, in all her bruises and all her cuts and all her scars, tearing her apart with their tenderness. Darcy shifts and keeps her fingers moving as she puts her mouth to Elektra’s neck, to her shoulder, whispering “I love you” over and over until it’s like the whole world’s disappeared but this, the three of them in this bed.

“The three of us,” Matthew says against her mouth, and then he slides one hand down along her breast and her ribs and her hips to tangle with Darcy’s and press his thumb into her clit, circling in a pattern of three. Elektra breaks. She clenches her legs together to trap their linked hands, rolls into it, and Darcy kisses her shoulder and her spine and the smooth curve of her neck, and Matthew lets her bite his lip until they both taste blood, because Elektra can’t manage anything gentler. For God’s sake, they haven’t even had the decency to let her kick her pants all the way off, but she can’t care, not when Darcy’s holding her close and Matthew’s pressing into her and kissing her the way he is, like he’s trying to swallow her whole, like he’s trying to keep her inside him, and she can’t breathe with how much she loves them. Matthew rests his hand to her heart, and catches at her lower lip with both of his. 

“There you are,” he says, and Darcy kisses the back of her shoulder again. “We didn’t let you fall.”

Elektra can’t speak. She turns. This time when Darcy kisses her it’s careful, it’s gentle, it’s Darcy’s tongue in her mouth and her fingers pressed to Elektra’s cheek like she’s found something she wants to keep. They’ve filled her up with boiling water and soft places, they’ve wrecked her, and she can’t care about any of it. She wants them to wreck her. She’s never wanted anyone to wreck her but them.

“Tornado of a Greek,” Darcy says, and Matthew’s laugh is husky and so ridiculously warm that Elektra can’t help but smile. Darcy leans back, and puts her lips to Elektra’s shoulder again. Elektra’s heart won’t stop racing. It feels like she’s just flung herself off a building, and they’ve caught her in an acrobatic loop. She thinks, for a moment, that Darcy might say something about it, but instead she hooks her chin over Elektra’s shoulder and hums for a while. It’s minutes or eons later when Darcy shakes her hair back, blinking like she’s trying to chase away tears, and peers at Matthew. “What do we do about him?”

“What do you mean, _him_ ,” says Matthew, his lips curving up in a smile so bright that it burns to look at. “I’m sitting right here.”

“What do you think, sweetheart?” Darcy turns, her lips moving against Elektra’s ear. “He’s been an awful tease.”

“He has,” Elektra says. Her voice catches a little, the way it always does when they call her that. _Sweetheart._ It’s completely wrong, of course, because she’s not sweetheart material, but they call her that anyway, and it’s just more bruises on her insides. “Quite unaccountably rude.” 

“You helped, though,” Darcy says. “Little bit.”

“I think we’re beyond my indiscretions.”

Matthew’s shoulders are shaking. “You could sound a little less like you’re going to find a ruler and smack me with it.”

“Well, if I thought you’d enjoy it at all, I would,” Darcy says. And again, Elektra thinks, it’s all synchronicity, because Darcy presses her fingers into Elektra’s ribs and Elektra puts her lips to Darcy’s cheek and it’s decided, how they’re going to ruin him. “But I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t work. You’d break the ruler before I came close.”

“True,” says Matthew, as Darcy unwinds from Elektra, shifts on the bed until she’s clambered over Elektra’s legs and put her hand to his chest, “but that doesn’t change the fact that—” 

“Shut up, Matthew,” Elektra says, and then Darcy’s kissing him, and Matthew’s lungs heave in and out in a sudden gasping breath. Elektra’s still buzzing with aftershocks, not quite able to keep her balance on the bed, but when she reaches out and starts tugging at the pajama pants that Matthew’s somehow kept all this time, Darcy drops one hand to help her, still scraping her teeth along the line of Matthew’s jaw. “Honestly, darling, you talk too much.”

“Coming from you,” says Matthew, in a crackling voice; Darcy’s mouth is up against his throat, just to the left of his adam’s apple, and she nips him hard enough to make him flinch, to mark up the skin there, “that’s almost an insult.”

“Jesus, shut _up_ ,” says Darcy, and hooks both hands around the back of his neck to kiss him again. They kiss in a way that’s totally different to how Elektra will kiss Matthew, or how Darcy kisses Elektra. There’s something playful about it that comes more from Matt and Darcy than it does from the devil and the fury. It’s not always there—they can be as dark as they like, as vicious as they need to be—but this is more mischief and laughter than anything, and there’s another pinching, wonderful ache just behind her ribs to watch it. Elektra yanks his pants off, finally, and prods them over the edge of the bed as Darcy nips at Matthew’s mouth, at his chin. “She’s right, you talk way too much—”

“Hypocrite,” says Matthew, and slides his hands up her back. “You’re such a filthy hypocrite—”

“Nope,” Darcy says, and puts her palms to his chest to push him back into the mattress. She settles, naked and bruised and covered in marks, just over the tops of his thighs, straddling him. She’s careful, Elektra notes, not to touch his cock. “You don’t get to touch if you’re going to be a jackass. Hands off.”

Deliberately, Matthew rests his fingers to Darcy’s knees, and squeezes.

“I’m going to bite you again,” she says, very seriously. Her lips are twitching. “You really need to quit being such a cocky little smartass.” 

“Pretty sure you both like me that way,” Matthew says, and Elektra hooks her hair behind her ears, her pulse racing in her throat, as Darcy’s mouth curves into a tiny, lovely smile. 

“Maybe a little.” She bends, and puts her mouth to his clavicle, to the space between his collarbones. “Keep your hands to yourself.” 

“If you wanted me to do that you could have just—”

Matthew rasps a little. Darcy’s bared her teeth and bitten him hard in the throat, not enough to break skin or make him bleed, but enough to leave behind a crescent of red where her teeth were. Elektra can’t remember the last time Darcy bit either of them that hard, and the look on Matthew’s face is a cross between terribly, terribly aroused (flushed and parted lips) and completely shocked (big eyes, loose hands, barely breathing). Darcy presses her lips to the mark, very gently, and then leans back. 

“Hands to yourself,” she says again, and Matthew’s wordless. “Or it’s Elektra’s turn to tease.” 

“And with that,” Elektra says, “you don’t get to touch at all.” 

He blinks very slowly at the ceiling. Matthew wets his lips. “This is a terrible catch-22.” 

“You started it,” says Darcy, and shifts back to put her mouth to his chest. She’s licking him, Elektra thinks, pressing her lips to his skin and then tracing her tongue over that same spot in the instant after, scraping just barely with her teeth. “Maybe think about torturing a woman before you do it. You can’t just imply—” and she shifts forward just enough that Matthew’s hips stutter and his nails dig into Darcy’s legs in an attempt to hold her still. Darcy pinches him hard in the ribs, and moves away again, tracing her tongue over a scar. “Seriously. You can’t just imply you’re going to go down on me and then sit there biting and breathing and using your stupid voice but not actually do _anything_ —”

“ _Christ,_ ” says Matthew, and shuts his eyes. “Jesus Christ, can you just—”

“What happened to _please_?” Darcy rests the very tip of her tongue to the hollow below his clavicle. There’s a roll to her vowels that’s more fury than it is Darcy, and Elektra shuts her eyes and lets it swallow her. “You were all about it earlier.”

“Darcy—” Matthew says, and his voice is all smoke and sandpaper, and Darcy’s is honey and lightning, and even in the aftermath it feels like her blood’s going to scorch right through her skin. “Darcy, for God’s sake—”

Elektra can’t take it anymore. She pushes herself onto her hands and knees and she leans down to kiss him, muffling him with her mouth. Matthew hooks one hand into the hair at the nape of her neck as Darcy goes back to what she was doing, drawing lines and patterns over his chest with her tongue and her fingertips. He’s growling in the back of his throat, and it’s the most wonderful, delicious little noise, a bit of the devil in bed with them, snapping and snarling and clawing for attention. Elektra tugs his lip between her teeth, and pulls back just far enough to say, “You’re not the only tease here, Matthew.”

“Jesus _Christ_ ,” Matthew says. It’s like a grenade bursting on his tongue. Elektra moves to suck on his earlobe. “Jesus—”

“Pretty sure Jesus isn’t here.” Darcy’s smiling when she licks a patch of skin just above his nipple. “Like…ninety percent sure.” 

Matthew cracks in the back of his throat, and the hand he has fisted in Elektra’s hair squeezes tight. “Shit, Darcy—”

“I really like it when you swear,” she says into his breastbone. “I can never get you to do it, usually, and it’s actually really, really hot, you need to swear more often—”

He’s twisting, trying to do something, Elektra’s not even sure what, touch one of them or both of them at once, and it’s less that Darcy and Elektra are holding him down and more like he’s clutching at Darcy’s hips to keep her there, to keep her mouth on his skin. He could fling them both away as easily as brushing off a fly, but he doesn’t; he’s let them push him to the bed, and if that’s not trust she doesn’t know what else to call it. He hasn’t given them control. He’s just letting them tease, flirt with pushing him over the edge, letting them play merry hell and planning to pay them back in turn. “ _Fucking_ hell.” 

“Excellent,” Darcy says. “Good start.” 

He’s panting and the bite mark on his throat is slowly starting its change to purple when Matthew opens his eyes again and says, “I’m _not_ saying please.”

“Too bad.” Elektra hums, and kisses his jaw. “She’d have stopped, then.”

The noise he makes then has to come from somewhere deeper than his chest. It tears something out of him with it, cracks a little more of Matthew Murdock into pieces, lets the monster bare his teeth. “Jesus fucking Christ.”

Darcy scrapes her teeth over his nipple. “Tell me how you really feel, then, Matt.”

“Darcy, just—fuck.”

“Is that more swearing?” Darcy says, and drops a hand to leave tiny, feathering touches to the base of his cock. Never quite actually touching him, just…pretending. She might be enjoying this a bit too much. “Or is that a request?”

Matthew makes an absolutely filthy sound, his head tipping back, and Elektra mouths at the underside of his chin. “Could be both, I think.”

Hm.” Darcy braces both hands to his waist, swiping at his skin with her thumbs. “Lucky for you, I’m nicer than you. And I’m definitely nicer than E.” 

Elektra snorts. “Possibly.”

“Probably.” Darcy shakes her hair back out of her face. There are tiny marks in the skin of her thighs where Matthew’s dug in with his nails. “I think we’re even, now, anyway. Well, mostly. We still need to deal with the fact that you are actually an asshole about this stuff—”

Whatever she means to say, it’s lost when Matthew rocks up off the bed and crushes his mouth over hers, seizing her by the hair and pulling to get Darcy to bare her throat. Their eyes are closed and Darcy’s lips part when Matthew drags his lips across her cheek, over her jaw, down the column of her neck. Her veins are prickling inside her skin again. Elektra goes up on her knees, catches Darcy’s chin in one hand, and licks a stripe along her cheek, over the soft skin in front of her ear. “I thought you told him no touching,” she says, and Matthew makes that tearing sound again before setting his teeth into the muscle between Darcy’s throat and her shoulder. 

“You complaining?” Darcy says in a breathless voice, and complaining isn’t…exactly how Elektra would put it, no. They’re a tangle of dark hair and scratching nails and teeth and that’s not something she’ll complain about. “You want to do this?”

“You’re the one who had to wait.” 

Darcy blinks, slowly. “But you like this part.”

And she does. She always likes being the one to rip one or the other of them into pieces, and after her slip of the tongue she’s not sure she’ll feel balanced again without doing it. ( _You always said you’d never be vulnerable and now you’re nothing but an open wound, Elektra, what are you doing_ —) But right now, no. She can’t say it, but there’s something holding her back this time. Elektra touches two fingers to the point of Darcy’s chin, and kisses her, very, very lightly, barely a touch of mouths. “You’re a darling for offering,” she says, in the soft, shadowy voice that always makes the pair of them shiver. “At the moment, I just want to watch.” 

Darcy’s lips part. She shuts her eyes and makes a quiet, thrumming little sound when Matthew presses both hands to the sides of her breasts, touches a thumb to her nipple. He turns enough that Elektra can lick at him without getting a mouthful of hair. “I want to watch the pair of you,” Elektra says, a whisper against his jaw, and he swallows almost audibly before scuffing his mouth over hers. She only kisses him just long enough that she can taste Darcy on his tongue before drawing back, out of reach. “We can talk about more after.”

“Elektra,” Darcy says, but it trails off into a desperate little whine as Matthew finally shifts his hips. She’s still straddling him, Darcy, her legs loose around his waist, and as Elektra strokes her own fingers down her ribs, over the tops of her breasts, he presses Darcy back into the mattress. Matthew rests on his elbows and kisses her, lazy, licking into Darcy’s mouth in a way that’s as calculated to get Elektra’s attention as it is to have Darcy pushing back up into him and dragging her nails along the muscles in his back. There’s a rolling, careful quality to his shoulders, how he rocks his hips against Darcy’s, how Darcy arches up off the blankets to press against him like a cat, and when Elektra slides her hand between her legs she’s slick again. Her heart’s racing in her throat. She’s tempted, in that moment, to brace one arm over the pair of them and nip at the hills and valleys of his bones, but she’s not sure it’s the right moment, for that.

“When did this change into teasing _me_?” she says, and draws her thumb around her clit in a slow circle that has her lungs catch. “For God’s sake, you two.”

Matthew doesn’t answer right away. He catches Darcy’s lip between his, dragging with his teeth. When he finally raises his head a little, turns, the smile curling his mouth is wanton and entirely too wild. “You’re the one that said not to touch.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Darcy says, and her accent’s raw and drawling in a way that’s like adding gasoline to a bonfire. “Matt, I swear, if you don’t fuck me right now then E and I are gonna lock ourselves in the shower and stay there for the rest of eternity and _you won’t be invited_.”

“Don’t make empty threats,” Matthew says, and goes back to kissing her. Darcy braces one hand to his arm, stroking a line with her fingers. Elektra shuts her eyes for a moment, and slips one finger up into herself. Judging by the little bitten-off snarl Matthew makes, he knows precisely what she’s doing. “Elektra—” 

“Do I need to show you what to do?” Elektra says, and that’s the last straw. Matthew bares his teeth at her, less a smile than a warning, and Elektra bares her teeth right back at him. When she sees it, Darcy actually purrs. 

“Don’t finish,” says Matthew. “Not without us.”

“So demanding,” Elektra says idly, and adds another finger. “I think she’s waiting on you.”

“I lied,” Darcy says, blood high in her cheeks. “I can watch this all day.”

“Now, there’s a thought,” says Elektra, and Matthew kisses Darcy before she can reply, snapping forward into her in a way that has Darcy digging her nails into the back of his head. She’s building, Elektra thinks, watching them through her lashes, trying to match her fingers to their rhythm. She might not be able to keep herself from coming before they do, when she can’t look away from them, the play of sunlight and shadow from the window and the curve of muscle in Darcy’s arms, the way Matthew’s shoulder blades shift through bars of light and dark. Darcy makes a high, thin sound in the back of her throat, and something spikes through Elektra’s nerves like a match being struck. Building and building and building, and the first firework bursts inside her skin when Darcy goes taut and silent, seizing a handful of the blanket and holding on so tightly that her knuckles shine white through her skin. Darcy opens her eyes a crack, loosens her hand as Matthew shifts and rocks into her again, faster, and Elektra knots her fingers through Darcy’s and holds on, ricocheting through a second bursting in her bones. It barely takes a heartbeat, maybe two, before Matthew goes stiff and still and heaves a breath. Darcy pushes herself up on her elbows to kiss him, swallow away the sounds, and Elektra rocks forward and presses into his side, leaving moth-light patterns of her mouth over the back of his shoulder. _We don’t break_ , she thinks, _not any of us_. Her fingers make a damp trail over his skin. 

Time has to pass between the last few aftershocks and when Elektra finally has enough mind to speak, but it doesn’t really feel like it. There’s lungs and touch and heartbeats, Darcy’s pulse slowing ever so gradually under her fingertips. Some of Matthew’s human skin comes back, just enough that there’s not quite so sharp a glint to him when he smiles. It’s still dangerous, she thinks, but in a completely different way. “Good?” she says, and kisses his ear. Darcy puts her lips to his chin, very gently. “Or was there something else you wanted to do?”

“It’s a free day,” Matthew says, and rolls onto his back. He keeps his eyes shut. “I think we can manage something.”

“Without me, because the pair of you have killed my brains.” Darcy puts a hand to her face, pushes her hair up out of her eyes, flat on her back and staring at the ceiling. There’s sweat dappling her forehead. “Jesus fucking Christ.”

“I thought you said he wasn’t anywhere near here,” Matthew says. 

“If he is then I officially apologize for scarring him permanently.” Darcy starts snorting. It’s stupidly endearing. “Christ. I swear that was not what I had planned for today. I was thinking about falling asleep on the sofa. And maybe painting my toenails.” She muses. “Well, maybe this a little bit.”

“I told you,” Matthew says. “Liar.”

“We,” Elektra says, and she settles between them for once, ignoring the way Matthew freezes and how Darcy’s breathing catches before she turns and rests her head to Elektra’s shoulder, tracing her fingers across the planes of her stomach, “are not doing anything. That’s the point, supposedly.”

Matthew hums. He shifts onto his side, and puts his lips to Elektra’s hairline. “Supposedly.”

“Maybe when I can move again someone can like…dump me in the tub.” Darcy reaches just far enough that she can brush her fingers over Matthew’s hipbone. “With a bath bomb. Possibly. Because my hair is going to be awful.”

She’s so stupidly fond of them, in that moment, that she can’t actually speak. Elektra shifts, and curls her arm around Darcy’s shoulders. Matthew tangles one foot between hers. _I love you_ , she says, with her hands. _I love you_. And then Darcy, very quietly, says it aloud. “I love you. We love you.”

“You’d better,” Elektra says. “I’ll be cross otherwise.”

Matthew hums into her ear.

**Author's Note:**

> I have a lot of headcanons about Elektra Natchios and Matt Murdock and the pair of them, together and apart, when it comes to sex? Like. I can't get behind the interpretation that Matt would be into submission or having someone else dominate him (the guy spends all night beating the shit out of people, and all day keeping himself under the strictest kind of control, facial expressions, words, persona, literally everything, and come on, you guys, if that doesn't say _control freak in bed_ I don't know what does). 
> 
> (Obviously this isn't to say that people who are dominant in their day to day lives don't find satisfaction and catharsis in being sexually submissive, especially in healthy contexts. This is just me saying I don't think Matt would be one of those people.) 
> 
> So, when you have a situation where there's a person (or people) who a) know what he can do, b) trust him, c) are trusted _by_ him, I think he'd be willing to let them mess with him a little, but he would never, ever, ever give up his own will or let them control him. So I hope that came through. I was trying to be really careful with it, and I don't know how well I succeeded. 
> 
> (I also feel like this tendency for people to make Matt more submissive comes from a weird interpretation of Catholicism in general and this makes me both mad and slightly depressed, so there's that, too.)
> 
> This incarnation of Elektra would be very similar (she and Matt are...basically the same person in a lot of ways, lbqh) in that she doesn't like sacrificing control. She likes being the one to lead, and know where they're going, and she's used to being the one that manipulates the situation. So with this, like...I really don't think she'd ever let herself be that emotionally goddamn vulnerable unless she knew she'd be able to get some of her own back, and that's what's coming into play here. (IE, Alix thinks that Elektra, at least in _between disaster and atrocity_ , would basically never say "I love you" aloud unless she was _absolutely sure_ it would never be overheard or used against her. Because she's like a bristling ball of nails. Even if these two turn her into a fluffy dork.)
> 
> (I mean, trailer. "I appreciate that." Come _on_.)


End file.
